 Okay, thanks very much. Welcome to the South Bloomington Development Review Board for Tuesday, August 21st. First item on the agenda is directions on emergency evacuation procedures from the conference room. Also, there is a sign-in sheet, so make sure and sign the sign-in sheet because that establishes your presence here and you can then be a party to continue deliberations on a matter if the issue goes forward and is continued. So the sign-in sheet is important to establish your eligibility as a party to each procedure. Emergency, so if there's an emergency, there's several ways out. One is right back the way you came in or these two doors here. And if there is an emergency, we will meet in the South Parking Lot, which is right behind us here. And the sign-up sheet, there's another reason for the sign-up sheet. Sign-up sheet is how we will make sure that everyone is safe and showing up in the parking lot. Item number two, additions, deletions, or changes in the order of agenda items, are there any? Item number three, comments and questions from the public unrelated to the agenda. Does anyone have any comments or questions on items that are not related to the agenda? Excuse me, number four, announcements. Wednesday, the September 18th, is that official? We're going to move it to Wednesday, September 19th. Not official yet. We're not moving them. Oh, we're not moving them. Oh, okay. So no announcements. Oh, we should announce that the September 4th meeting, the next meeting will be at the police station. Oh, okay. Thank you. Number five, suspicious behavior and safety refresher presentation by Sergeant Douglas Duby, Communication Training Manager, Southburn Police Department. Or you just need to give it a little talk. Okay, so like you said, my name's Doug Duby. I'm a Sergeant with the Police Department. One of the things I do for the Police Department is crisis planning for the city. We've been in front of the commission and boards before to talk about the crisis plan for the city. But we haven't done very much since. And we had an incident that came up a few months ago in City Hall that sparked what constitutes somebody acting suspiciously. So I was asked to come in front of all the commissions and all the boards and speak to the committees about what constitutes suspicious behavior. You'll hear me say a couple of times tonight that it's behavior and actions that are suspicious, not people. People are not suspicious. What they do may be. So what are some of the indicators of suspicious activity? So some of the things that you might see is somebody who walks into a room and starts scanning around the room and looking for where the exits are, where the escape routes might be. If they're going to do something criminal, they want to know how to get out of the room. Police officers kind of, we do that on a normal basis. We walk into a room and we look for exits. We look for where people might hide. That's not suspicious on my behavior, but someone who's not a police officer, it may be suspicious. Someone looking in or walking into a room and looking around and seeing how many people are in a room, who might have cameras on them, who might have tape recorders or cell phones, looking for witnesses. Those things could be suspicious. Again, it could be suspicious. It may not be. If you don't know, that's when the police come into the situation and we figure out if somebody is being suspicious. Somebody looking for where security might have their office or where backup might come from a security guard or a police officer. That could be suspicious. We as human beings, we know what's normal in our world. We know in our environment what belongs and what doesn't. When things are out of normal, we get the little hairs on the back of your neck that stand up. You get that intuition that says something's not right. When you feel that, it probably is suspicious. Something probably is not right. When that happens, call the police. We'll come and talk to somebody, whoever the suspicious acting person may be, and we will determine if their actions are suspicious or not. So avoidance. Someone walking into a room and seeing security cameras and corners and kind of doing one of these things, not looking at security, looking for, again, the witnesses with cell phones. Those are things that are suspicious. People hiding from being recorded is suspicious. Most people don't mind being recorded. We're recorded 100 times a day and we probably don't even know it. People asking inappropriate questions. In the situation that sparked this whole conversation here at City Hall, it was somebody who came into City Hall and asked the receptionists some inappropriate questions. People asking questions like, hey, is the city manager in today? Does he usually get in by 8 o'clock in the morning? Does he usually take Dorset Street from the south or from the north? Does he still drive that gray car? Stuff like that, inappropriate information that someone might have, and I don't know if that's true anyway, by the way, of the city manager. Stuff like those kind of questions. Information people should not have but do is inappropriate. It could be suspicious. People asking about building layout. Hey, where's the city manager's office? Is it still upstairs? Is it still in the front of the building? Is his office next to the city planner's office? Those things like that, most people don't need to know that. How many employees in the building right now? Where is everybody right now? Is there any security in the building right now? Those are questions normal people don't ask and don't need to know. If somebody's asking those questions, they're acting suspiciously. Other than me standing up here giving a presentation and sweating, sweating inappropriately is suspicious. So if it's 30 degrees outside and somebody is sweating profusely and they didn't just come from the gym, they could be suspicious. They could be acting suspiciously. Going in and out of a building. So you've all heard of the fight or flight syndrome that people go through. So walking in and out of a building repeatedly is your body going through that fight or flight syndrome. In a bad guy's case, what they're thinking in their head and their body's trying to determine is do I commit my crime? Do I not? Do I commit my crime? Do I not? So they're going in and out trying to make up their mind whether or not they're going to do something bad or not. Repeated phrases muttering to themselves. They're trying to get themselves psyched up to do the crime. And then if you've got Vincent Donofrio doing the thousand-yard stare, that's acting suspiciously. If you see somebody doing that, please give the police a call. We'll come and talk to them to find out what's going on. Because that's not normal behavior. Hands and pockets. Depending on the time of year. Could be suspicious. It's Vermont. It gets cold out. Not everybody has gloves. So wintertime hands and pockets may not be suspicious. But once they come into the building and they still refuse to take their hands out of their pockets, that could be suspicious. Again, you keep hearing me say could be, maybe. It could be a great explanation for any one of these things by themselves. We don't know. But that's what I do. I go up and I approach somebody and I talk to them and I find out if their behavior is suspicious. If you see this stuff and it gets the hairs on the back of your neck going or you just get that little spidey sense going that something's not right, it probably isn't. Call the police. Favoring or adjusting clothing. That's kind of a big one. And what that could be is someone's got a weapon on them. And I'm a police officer. I've been a police officer for about 30 years. I'm very comfortable carrying a gun on my head. But even me, every day, I put my hand on my gun, make sure it's still there, make sure nobody can get at it. Bad guys aren't used to wearing weapons on their sides. And what they'll end up doing is that every two or three seconds, they're still making sure it's there. They don't have nice holsters like we do at the police station. They don't have the good equipment, so they're making sure it hasn't slipped down their pants or something like that. You see somebody keep checking their clothing, especially around their waistline, that's acting suspicious. That's a reason to call the police. If they keep looking at a certain article of their clothing, that could be suspicious as well. Again, it could be looking at a weapon or it could be looking at where they've placed a package or where they're going to commit the crime. They're going to hit somebody on the side of the head or something so they keep looking at the side of somebody's head. That could be suspicious activity. Packages, kind of like the TSA thing at the airport. Unattended packages in this day and age are suspicious. If you see somebody walk in, put a package down and turn around and walk out, that's suspicious and we want to know about it. This case here is actually from, if I remember right, some place in Sweden, a bus station in Sweden, and it was very benign. It turned out to be a big package of fish, but it closed down the bus station for about five hours because it's a suspicious package. You just don't know what it is. Again, I'm not going to take up a lot of your time, but I just want to end with racial profiling. Let's talk about that real quick. Factors, race, ethnicity, religion, those things are not suspicious. Again, remember it's behaviors and actions that are suspicious, not people. People by themselves are not suspicious. It's what they do and how they act that can be suspicious. And remember, if you feel that it's suspicious, it may be, in those cases, just give us a call, we'll come and figure it out. That's what we do. And like I said, simple, easy, quick, unless there's questions. Very helpful. Thank you very much. And if you do have questions at some point in the future, you can always give me a call to the police department. Super, I appreciate it. Thanks very much. All right, next time on the agenda, final plan application, SD 18-25 of Mitchworth's properties, LLC, to combine two lots into one lot for the purpose of constructing a project on the combined parcel, which will be reviewed under separate site plan application 2021 and 325 Dorset Street. We're here for the apka. Engineers representing the apka. Okay, let's see. Excuse me, could you speak a little more directly into the microphone? Maybe it'll come up a little bit. Will it lift up? Conflicts of interest. We've worked together before, but no conflict. And if you raise your right hand, please, do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on a penalty of perjury? I do. So we are here tonight for the final plat application to combine two lots into one lot so that we can construct a new project at 321 and 325 Dorset Street. We came in a couple of weeks to go for the sketch plan application, and now we're here for final. And I guess basically we're removing the property line between those two parcels. So this is not, let's see, this is not for the project itself, but for the building itself, this is just combining lots. That's correct. The building is in form-based code, is it? That's right. So it'll be administrative, the building itself. Under review now. It's under review now. Very good, okay. The previous buildings are gone. Yes, they were demolished. And we have two letters about parking. Yeah, both of those letters, just to clarify, are from the same person. She sent a letter, current letter, and then she sent a copy of a letter that she had submitted back in 2016. Because the parking doesn't have to do with the disappearance of the lots, I think the parking is in your area, not ours. It is. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate the letters. There's no comments from the staff on this. Does anyone have any questions from the board? I have no questions. Okay. I'll entertain a motion to close. Public. Oh, public. Anyone have any comments or questions from the public? On the simple combining of two lots, not the project itself, combining of two lots. You can tell me if it's an inappropriate question. I'm just curious what is planned to go there. It's a mixed-use two-story commercial building with medical office space on the bottom and apartments on top. Okay. Other questions from the public? Hearing none. I'll entertain a motion to close. I'll move that we close. If I figure out which one I'm doing here. It's a site plan, right? Final plan. I'm sorry. Final plan application SD 1825 for Mitch Ward's properties LLC for 321 325 Market Street. I'll move in second with the closest application. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you very much. Thank you. Take care. Number seven on the agenda, continued miscellaneous application MS-18-03 of Elizabeth Pierce to confirm the presence and saleability of transfer development rights on lots A, B, and C at 1731 Hinesburg Road who is here for the Africa. Brandon Blass and Elizabeth Pierce are both here. Okay. And we continued this to get a couple of documents, right? We continued this in order to get city council attorney recommendation on whether it would be constituted advisory opinion. Okay. Yep. And you sent us that. This morning. This morning. Sorry for the late notice. That's all right. So I sent it as part of the packet, the revised draft decision that our attorney works very hard on. And then she also sent a letter which I forwarded to the board this morning describing her opinion on whether or not it constitutes an advisory opinion. The summary, the sort of take home of that letter is, is that it's in court case and majority of issues that the DRB has asked to resolve are not hypothetical questions that require speculation. If one exception was the draft decision to not address the actual questions are within the scope of DRB's jurisdiction. So her decision, her feeling was that it's within the scope of what we can do. Right. The term she used was a declaratory ruling. Yep. Which is different from an advisory opinion. I'm speaking outside of my expertise right now. Is it show? We are ready. Advisory opinions are unconstitutional. A declaratory judgment which the city, without reciting the whole opinion, which the city attorney goes on to explain at great length is a slightly different thing. It requires a state of affairs where two parties are close enough to a live case or controversy so that it is appropriate to determine their rights on their request to avoid unnecessary litigation. That's broadly stated. In the drum heller case which is discussed at length in the city attorney's opinion, the finding that because there was an actual contract between the two parties, the question before the board was not an abstract question. We don't answer abstract questions. And therefore was not an advisory opinion but was a request for declaratory judgment. I'm not saying independently whether I agree with the city attorney's conclusion. I'm just explaining it a little bit. In this case, the city attorney found the facts to be analogous so that it found that the court, excuse me, the board would not be rendering an advisory opinion. It would be rendering a declaratory judgment. I will say this. I've looked at a draft of a document that you don't have but that the board does. And the problem I would have with it, I will tell Marla, is that it doesn't recite any of those facts on which the city attorney relied. There's nothing in here without rejecting the city attorney's principle or the facts that she was relying on when she rendered her opinion. I don't see any of those facts before us. In the draft decision. In this draft decision. So there is no basis on the face of this decision for rendering a judgment other than an advisory judgment. And I think it's, if we take, if we decide, if the board decides to accept the city attorney's opinion, nevertheless this form of, these findings need to be beefed up so that the facts on which the city has enough, the parties have joined enough to support the claritory jurisdiction. That's what I wanted to say. And this may delay you a little bit. It shouldn't affect, substantively, what you're looking for. So, so, if we have enough information, we can close, we can close tonight and beef up because that information from the city attorney has been provided to us. What I think I'm hearing you say is you would like to just drop some of that language into the findings. Just drop is not exactly the way I would put it. I would like to see the findings on which the city attorney relied to be carefully articulated in the findings of the board so that its jurisdiction is supported on the face of the decision. I don't think I was at the previous hearing on this. If we have that in our record somewhere, then it's a matter of picking those facts out of the record, inserting them as the basis for our jurisdiction into the findings. And it would work fine. Again, I want to make clear, I'm not making a judgment one way or the other. I'm either agreeing with nor second guessing the city attorney at this point. I want her legal judgment, I'm just saying. Assuming it's right, this decision needs to be improved. This form needs to be improved. Okay. Improvement of form, I think, can be achieved without holding up. So, anybody else on the board have questions? I consider this over our heads. I did have one additional thing when I sent out the packet. The applicant's attorney reviewed it and had a question about paragraph 4b of the conditions that implies that the density is 1.2 dwelling units per acre for the receiving acre unless the owner removes dwelling unit density. They'd like to amend that to say removes or adds. That's what city attorney staff intended to say with that draft condition. So, it says permanently encumbers now? Is that what you're looking at? 4b. Promote encumbers. Right, so we'd have to work on some language, but the idea of being either adds or subtracts. Yep. Great. Okay. I have one other question. I'm sorry, Marle, if you don't know the answer, it's fine, but I'd like to get an answer. So, the C of what we've been presented with, it says the owner of lot B may be in possession of development rights which exceed the maximum development potential of lot B. That doesn't make any sense to me. The point of that and a couple other places in the finding portion of this document is that development rights may be transferred to a person. They do not necessarily need to be transferred but someone can own development rights and not use them, save them for later, sell them to someone else as a... Okay. So until that person declares I'm going to use these development rights for this particular project, they don't associate with a specific partial of land and that's why this is... Okay. I got it. Comments, questions from the board? Hearing none. I have a question. You referenced the timeline might be adjusted by the clarification that you need. Could you say a little bit more about how that would affect the decision that you would make in the timeline there? I'm only asking because the timeline is pretty important to us. So, it would just mean that we couldn't, after the hearing, have a deliberative session to sign the draft decision. It would mean that we'd have to revise and take it up before the board's next meeting. Well, we have 45 days to make a decision in any case. One way or another, it'll be 45 days from tonight. Or faster. Right. Assuming we close tonight. As soon as possible. We have a closing date of October 5th but this should be done pretty well ahead of that because other things connect to this. So, is it a possibility to get the information that Frank was bringing up and make a decision based on that ahead of that meeting or is that really the only time that would be possible to make that decision? We'll ask the board to sort of assemble for a special meeting to deliberate on this. I would ask that. Yes. If that's possible. So, the idea would be to have it work as quickly as possible because you also have a review period or an appeal period or something like that, right? Is something else that has been sort of... September 4th is plenty of time before October 5th is true, there's a 30-day appeal period so you'd be fine on your closing date. If we did it tonight yeah, your appeal period would run out. But it's also possible, you know, to... The risk is pretty slight that anyone is going to care about this highly technical issue, I think. And secondly, you could postpone your closing ten-days. That's not entirely up to us so that may or may not be an option. In any event, I only said what I think the law is. The board will decide what it's going to do. Yeah, and I think that makes total sense. I would ask if it's possible if you could make a decision ahead of that September 4th date that would help quite a lot. Yeah, quickly the city attorney can get us revised language. Yes? Yeah, I'm kind of at the Vermont address. Obviously this conservation project has been carefully crafted and we've already extended the closing once and actually we'll be twice courtesy of other people here who represent the family. I just wanted to echo what Brandon was saying in terms of the use of real estate speak time is of the essence and you players have been very patient and if there's even a possibility of some kind of motion tonight that it's conditioned or in your deliberative session that could become ahead of that again the players have extended the contract already and we just felt comfortable in our lenders and other financiers wanted to feel comfortable that this was a concept that was acceptable. As you know, that's why we're here just to kind of clear the air a little bit that this is doable and then we feel more comfortable as to all the other going ahead. And then we're up against some other contract deadlines in terms of grant applications et cetera so I don't need to go into the details of that but I'll just echo what Brandon said in terms of that, in terms of the time is of the essence. I'll leave it at that. Okay, thank you very much. Yes? The city attorney's opinion stays confidential within our discretion. We have every right to release it. We give them the opinion and see if that gives enough comfort to their lenders. More questions? Comments from the public? Hearing none. I move that we close Ms. Laney's application MS-1803 of Elizabeth C. Pierce, 1731 Hinesburg Road. Second. It's been moved and second. The application in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thanks very much. Thank you. Take care. Next on the agenda, sketch plan application SD 18-26 of Gardner construction to subdivide two existing parcels totaling 5.8 acres and developed with one single family dwelling into approximately six lots for the purpose of a 23 unit residential planned unit development. The planned unit development is consist of 17 detached single family homes, six units in two family dwellings and one existing single family home 1398 Hinesburg Road who is here for the applicant. Hello. David Burke, O'Leary Burke Dan Heil from O'Leary Burke is here with me and Charlotte Gardner one of the landowners with Brad Gardner is here also. This is a project that some of you have seen, I know you've seen it Bill in 2016 it had a sketch plan application and that was preceded by a few meetings. We had a couple sit downs for staff technical committee before that sketch plan. The project itself is on a 5.8 acre parcel for clarification. It should say currently two parcels both owned by the gardeners. So what had happened when we were in 2016 the other parcel was not yet owned by the gardeners. It was part of the South Burlington Realty Company and it was zoned as part of the park. The planning commission re-zoned it and that one acre was sold to the gardeners. So the units that are in that area were shown in 2016. There is an issue now as far as the viewport followed up on and that was just not that was not seen in 2016. The parcel itself said 1398 Hinesburg Road there's an existing driveway that serves the existing home directly across from Butler farms and the South is Wildflower Drive. Wildflower Drive comes off of Hinesburg Road. It terminates in a temporary turnaround. The temporary turnaround is on the gardeners parcel. The gardeners provided an easement, a temporary easement for that temporary turnaround and that we talked about this in 2016 but it was clearly intent that Wildflower Drive to continue through this parcel when the gardeners redeveloped it and come out to Hinesburg Road. So the main design features of this project are set. You have Wildflower Drive that ends in a temporary turnaround on the gardener parcel and you have Butler Drive on limited frontage that we have on Hinesburg Road. To the north of the entrance that road is a class 2 wetland and a 50 foot buffer of which we have a minor impact with the sidewalk to the wetland and then there's also a buffer impact where that road comes in. But the starting point and the end point of this road are fixed. The alignment I will suggest is fixed. It's a public road and it needs to meet public road requirements. So the radii of public road requirements misses the existing home and one item that's in the staff notes that's new that had never been discussed is the possibility or the suggestion of removing the house. We in no way want to remove the house. It's a value. It would be updated but it fits the parcel, it fits the alignment that is set by the public portion of the road. Certainly there's other aspects of the layout that could be looked at. One thing I'd like to do is to hand out some copies of 2016 sketch. The main reason for this is that when I go over what's changed you'll be able to follow along a little bit better. But the main changes the road width narrowed based on public works input to match wildflower drive the road width would match wildflower drive. On this side based on input from folks that live in wildflower drive we had two duplexes and it was the same size as this. So there's two duplexes and the main comment was single family homes were single family lots. It's just too much right there. So we did as shown on the plan I just gave you we eliminated the two duplexes here and reduced it by one unit. One of the other common themes from staff was the common amenity area which we have in this vicinity and there used to be two units here. So on the plan that I gave you one unit has been removed. We did the gardeners did hire Terry Krinsky landscape architect. He has looked at some initial layouts for this common amenity area. We told him not to finalize those because we're at sketch plan. So we thought that the appropriate time was at preliminary. We now think based on staff notes that the best way to move forward may be for us to sit down with staff again. It's been a long process and to try to get to some common ground before moving forward with the DRB and that may be finalizing a design of the common amenity area. It may be a perspective of the road. Those are things that we've talked about with Mr. Krinsky. Some of the items I won't be going right by the staff notes because I don't think that it's appropriate tonight for me to take that much of your time. But I mentioned the class 2 wetland that's here, predominantly north of the entrance. The entrance is where it needs to go. Tina Heath from Wetlands has been out here with us. That's the only wetland that has some reasonable qualities and she understands that we need to get a road in and she understands that where we're doing it has the minimum impact on that wetland. With that said that will require a wetland permit from the state. There's a depressional heavy soils out here. Heavy soils relatively flat site. So any place that was not graded reasonable is going to be wet in the spring. So there's a wet spot here in the spring. Extremely marginal not a concern. It's class 3 it's not a concern to date. But that's one of the areas that we are looking to impact. And then there is a wetland here that class 3 wetland that will be preserved. There's a couple wetlands here that the wetland consultant Gilman and Briggs has actually suggested they asked what we planned on doing here. The drainage from this parcel all goes to this corner. So that's the natural place that they had to take care of the storm water. What we are looking to do it would be a preliminary but it would be a gravel wetland. And it's the professionals opinion that that will be an improvement over what's there now. Both of those are class 3 so they're not protected by the wetlands division. Did you say gravel less or gravel less? Gravel less. So that's one of the areas that they like to see in heavy soils where you can't infiltrate. Thanks. You can't infiltrate on this site. You're somewhat limited as to what you can do and meet the storm water rules. This project will have a myriad of state permits including Act 250. But it does require a state storm water permit. On that plan I have one change that I've talked to the gardeners about that we certainly are willing to make. You'll see that while we reduce by one unit here and we reduce by one unit here we're showing 23 and in 2016 it was 22. The reason for that is there was an increase of 3 units up here. These are small units. Mr. Gardner was approached by the city manager and was asked if the Kirby Road units would fit on this site and those are the Kirby Road units. Whether at a certain point Brad it was unknown whether that would actually occur and Brad said well I'm willing to build the same unit as affordable units if that's the case. I think just because of the density concern that we're better off reverting to the three units that we had in that corner so what I'm saying is that it would be a 20 unit project versus the 23 unit project. These five units are currently in question because of the Heinsberg North View Protection Zone. I will note a couple of things on the Heinsberg North View Protection Zone. What it did was it followed the industrial line, came down the former lot line which is right here and down here. It just followed that line. There's not a good reason that it followed that line other than that was the property line because if you're heading south there is no view. You're just looking into the houses. There's no distant view of the mountains. The distance view of the mountains is about when you get to just about close to this property line because this is a mature tree line here so if you're traveling north you're blocked from any view until you get to right about in here. These were one story proposed as one story units and that was to mitigate view so while the view protection wasn't talked about specifically, view was talked about and both of these duplexes are one level units. This was a front facade with a front porch which came out before and by virtue of that wetland it sits back quite a ways so we don't think that it'll have any impact on what's trying to be preserved as the view protection but we also recognize that it doesn't seem to meet the waiver section of your regulations so we will likely be seeking with the planning commission to see whether or not they agree and that basically the view protection zone will be modified to preserve the view versus follow a lot line. I'll go to the staff notes quick. I'm not going to go into great detail because again I think our next step is really to sit down with staff. On item one it talked about the ownership as I stated the gardeners do own both parcels. The planning commission did rezone this piece. The piece that was formerly south Burlington realty. That's item one. Item at the bottom of page two it says DPW fire stormwater police have not yet reviewed the application. Staff is usually the one that seeks that review. It sounds like I'm not a later date. I will say that they were involved in 2016 and we made the changes that were requested then. The only change that I can recall was public works. I don't recall fire having a question about sprinklers which is mentioned in the staff notes and I'd like that to be deferred to the fire department but I may not recall that correctly but he wanted to know where the hydrants were if the private roads are less than 200 feet and then there's hydrants on the road so that's within their normal length of hose so I don't know that I'm sure they'd like them but I don't know that they're going to require sprinklers. One question before I should have asked it. So the six Kirby house units are going to go back and be big units like this? Yeah, well it seems as though in 2016 one of the main main items of input was that this was a fair amount of units for this piece and the density for this piece is 23 with TDRs and we are at 23 on that plan so by going back to 3 we're below the maximum with the TDRs the gardeners own TDRs so they have the TDRs the intent the historic intent of the southeast quadrant district is for parcels that are zoned like this is to try to utilize those we know we need to meet the regulations which includes more than that but these do meet the regulations that are setbacks and fall below my question, I'm sorry my question is by going back to larger units are these those be eliminated so what is now shown as somewhat affordable homes are not going to be as affordable the general consensus of the board is a preference of those six units, we don't have a problem with that either we're trying to react to the density concern and that's one way to react so yes, the larger units will not be perpetually affordable, they would be market rate units but the gardeners are willing to do those units this was specifically to start to address the density concern so item two we talked about we will follow up with planning commission and staff on the view protection zone item three, it is our intent to keep the existing home as part of item three item four, as shown on our plan tonight the six units creates another issue that we didn't think of but your private roads in south Burlington have this weird it's kind of weird to be honest you can do nine units on a private road however no more than five can be of any one type so if unit 10 and 11 were combined there to a duplex problem solved because there's four singles in one duplex so the problems also solved if we go back to the three units that we previously envisioned in that corner the only reason that it went to the six was to react Mr. Gardner reacting to the question from the city on whether or not that area could take the curvy road units is it either or six curbies or three big homes yes well no I guess it's it's flexible we would need input from the board and or staff moving forward you know if it's like we'd still like two of those and one of the others or three of those and one of the others any configuration in that corner is fine it all falls under the maximum at this point I guess we we'd be asking for feedback on that though we're open to anything in that corner that corner has the least impact on any of the neighbors so David you use the term perpetually affordable if they were the six what makes them perpetually affordable just that they're small there would have to be the legal documents to ensure that they're perpetually affordable that also falls as I understand what Brad understood and I wasn't part of the conversation but what Brad understood when that was addressed was that with those being moved there and being perpetually affordable that his input to me was that they don't need TDRs for those if they're perpetually affordable I think the reality is that there's bonuses available if you do perpetually affordable so that was one of the potential benefits that Brad could see is that he didn't have to use up three TDRs on the three units there and he could at the time address an issue that was apparently there of where do we put these Kirby Road units and then as a follow-up to that he just said well even if they don't put the Kirby Road units here I'm still willing to build them so I'm probably not being that helpful on this side of the table we're wide open in that corner that's a good answer but Bill I think we may need input from the affordable housing committee yep thanks I would point out something about the I don't know would you put the picture back up there again as we had it I think we've commented on this in another context in another development that the idea of perpetually or affordable units in providing an economic mix maybe this is cutting it too far is to really integrate the affordable units into the community of which it's a part now I don't suggest this is a deliberate strategy on your part but the impact of what I see there is you know in blunt terms here's the regular people and up in this corner we got the poor people it's just such a nice neat little row of six units off to the side themselves is there any potential mix is there any potential for dispersing the affordable units more homogenously within the mix well that certainly wasn't the intent I wasn't making an accusation again this was a reaction to a question that came up I would say where I can see why you would ask that question Frank but I don't think that on this site that that's true this is a relatively small site so it's not that you go through the development and then you've got the small condos in the back or something these are an integral part of this community they're right amongst everything and there is a fair amount of density here so what we've tried to do is these are large single family lots back here the lots on wildflower aren't quite as large so we're trying to get per year regulations a mix of housing here and I do think we've done a good job of that where we've got some single family lots we've got some duplexes that are one level and we've got some single units and in this case we've got smaller units there but that was done to try to address one to try to get to the density that is allowed with your approval to try to get to that density as reasonable to it but to also propose something that has anything has an impact but doesn't have the largest impact on the neighbors so that's what we do achieve so I wouldn't say that if the board likes the idea of these units and or if we're seeking input from the affordable housing committee and I would point out that it will not be poor people the affordable housing in South Burlington the number is still quite high it's a little hyperbolic too so affordable housing in South Burlington is still a pretty good number that a fair amount of people can't afford so it'll be a reasonably priced structure because of the size because they're relatively small but we can look at it but I don't see a good place for it unless we were to try to switch switch things up and the benefit even when we had the three units there the three units weren't very deep units they were just more rectangular unless this house gets removed this is this layout and or the three units is kind of what we end up in in that corner we can't put this design we can't put that design it just doesn't fit there's not enough room unless that house was removed and we don't see any good reason to remove a perfectly good house what's the I just can't make it out I can't tell from here and I can't tell from this distance what's the surface what's going on on the ground between the existing house and those six units that great stuff well this is a driveway this is a private road this one here is a private road with parking spaces right here that comes right by that house the lot line for that house comes down this side of the drive into the back so that's all hard surface there's no grass in there and no nothing anything that's dark grey is hard surface there is a grass strip between the road and existing house there's lawn a little bit of lawn area right in there and around that corner but not very far off the house is the edge of the road part of the reason you might not be seeing it very well we like ortho photos but they they cast the shadow depending on where they were taking so the edge of this house is here and you've got grass from there to there item 5 as I said we'd like to follow up with the fire chief on that item 6 item 6 kind of surprises me the main road as I said is a public road it's got a fixed starting point and a fixed end point it has required geometry so you have a certain amount of length on that road unless we were to propose a project that was all small units you would not yet you would not yet to the density with TDRs without doing some spurs off of this one of the things that staff suggested at one of the TRC meetings before is why not take this road and move it over here that does not make sense any time you add road, you add impervious you take away area you have less open space and it didn't meet geometry to do that either but that was one of the suggestions when we sat down with staff prior to the sketch plan before we feel that with this being fixed that these two appendages are somewhat necessary they both meet your requirements this one would have to either combine one to meet the requirement with the six units but they're both less than 200 feet in length so they do meet the requirements of the regulations and while we will sit down with staff and look at what we can do one thing we can do is to get feedback from staff work on a common amenity area work on what this project looks like from a perspective view and then on a separate on a separate thing we have to pursue units one through five with the planning commission in regards to the view protection zone item seven I've kind of beat to death a little bit but that's where I talked about Mr. Krinsky and moving forward with more design there we do feel that that's a preliminary item usually usually sketch is supposed to be somewhat informal and this really is anything but informal at this point as far as where we started and where we are now so we would with meeting with staff we need to move forward and then the gardeners can more easily spend money on additional consultants and getting that level of detail what how the proposed what's it called common land meets the open space requirements or are you satisfied with how they've shown it sketch John, Frank, Jen what do you think we'll have well won't we have opportunity later on at the preliminary process to have all the input we want well this is a five point hubbock it's almost six acres and nearly an acre of it is being provided as common land and about another half an acre is wetland buffer right the front area is probably in that range I'm not you know let me just I don't have a problem with the park park land per se so far I mean I think it needs more development I think we need to understand better how it's separated from other housing and so forth we can deal with that later as far as I'm concerned so that's not my issue my issue is density I think it's too dense I thought it was too dense before I think it's too dense today and I don't think three of the units in three of the small units in replacing them with larger units makes it less dense I think it's just as dense I know what the I know what the LDR is called for I know what the max density is I understand all that I think it's too dense we may approve up to 23 we don't have to and actually that's never been entirely clear to me is that the consistent interpretation that we have discretion not to allow a developer to go to the max so the LDR state that the board may approve up to the maximum given that other sections of the LDRs are met including things like connectivity and high quality open spaces and appropriate layouts so that's sort of where the board has typically applied their discretion is in determination of whether the other standards are met so it's not a determination made in isolation I think there has to be rationale from the board if they're not to you know it's both ways we have to show that we meet the regulations and if the board feels we don't I don't think it's a personal opinion let me ask you I do have one question about the common land I think on a ratio basis of common land what you've labeled here as common land to overall it looks at least in a two-dimensional drawing not bad but what is the character of that land what is the topography that's free of wetlands if you wanted to make a soccer field out of the whole acre could you do it it's free of wetland and it's flat the intent is not for the intent here is not going to be for an active thing like a soccer field it's going to be more of a passive amenity area so I think that's where more detail will be helpful again I think it's the appropriate time is that preliminary with that said I think we will be working on it directly with staff prior to preliminary hopefully the first time that you guys see the details is that preliminary so while it is flat and while it is of reasonable size it's not intended that this is going to be a ball field of any type you guys are here in the reservations I mean I have no problem trying to work stuff out with staff I hope you'll pay attention so you have a sheer density concern if you're willing to alleviate that to some extent you have something of an affordable housing concern I think the solid I am unimpressed by the pure hard surface between the six affordable units and the large existing house for what it's worth you hear where the little rumbles are work with staff and you can fix them on some extent our job here is to provide guidance yes that's for stages so on that basis I'm happy with them working with staff on common land I have one more question as sort of foreshadowing for you because of my peculiarity in these matters I see I'm happy to see that you've got some of these houses with clearly dilated lots and you have others including the duplexes that are identified as building area on common land at least from my perspective you would do well to keep the land under the buildings under those buildings common held in common and not sold as in fee because I think to do that is illegal I don't think your regs address it one way or the other currently their footprints and the rationale I don't know about the legal end of it other than that attorneys have been allowing it for 25 years and it is in the regulate footprint lots are in your regulations it's addressed in the regulations that they're not a lot for zoning purposes no that's not so that's an attorney opinion for 25 years ago it is 100% incorrect the reason that they're on there now and I'll certainly check with the gardeners as to whether they'd be okay with them on those is that the second you probably heard it before but the secondary mortgage market gives a slightly better rate and it's slightly easier if you own the land that your building sits on versus not owning it and I have no problem with it except that it's illegal as he said minority opinion but it's an important one well it's a small board so we take all opinions to heart you're okay by the way a condo is not the only solution we're going to have to talk there's a fee involved in that you can't talk to him by the way I understand we won't do that on units 6 through 11 I addressed it earlier I'm on item 10 if those were to stay we would have to combine one of them into a duplex so that the no more than five units of one kind on that private road or map so you skipped 8 and 9 you don't think I mean you think we've covered 8 and 9 did I skip 8 and 9? yep 7 well 8 quite honestly I kind of addressed it I guess I didn't address it saying item 8 I guess I don't quite understand it the suggestion is that we could single load the road and get the same number of units I don't see how you could do that unless you did all small units is if you don't have units on the say the interior of the roadway if you eliminate these units and you're trying to get a similar number of units the only way to do that is to go to more duplexes here or go to smaller units go to smaller units you can respond whether you like this idea or not but just to clarify what we were trying to say is if you remove these units and place them along a roadway that loops sort of like this so that the open space it's specifically called out in the LDR is that open space to consider fronting open space on roadways so that the homes would be on the back of this road the open space would sort of be in the middle and the homes would be off back in this area so the suggestion is just to clarify what we're suggesting you can take it out of here to put that open space within two roadways in between two roadways I guess I wonder what the board feels about that because that doesn't make sense to me but I have no problem with getting rid of one of those getting rid of one or both of those stub lines the stub roads and lowering the density okay item nine we did include in the submittal the board got it we did include the letter from Gilman and Brakes Environmental I touched on a bit of that in the overview but in general the legitimate wetland that has functions and values is essentially being preserved with the exception of very minor impact for the road where it has to go and then there is an extremely marginal area here that's about six inch it just wasn't graded properly and it's heavy soils and it becomes a class three wetland so that is proposed to be impacted this one's preserved these two would change to the gravel wetland which makes more sense because it does have a gravel bottom when you build those so we think we are this design this design we have the wetlands done for any layout before any input from staff we had the wetlands done here we've been doing layouts for 35 years and that's the way that you have to do it when you have wetlands so we do feel that this does a good job in regards to wetlands including our on-site visit with the state and ten I went over item 11 that we talked about as far as items one through five seems like that's the planning commission item one question that I have and maybe it's more of a staff follow up the timing for the planning commission from Paul Conner's input is sounds like if they were to agree that it may not be until spring of 2019 and we would be probably bumping up against an extension again or something to if there's something else going on at the town at the city can time stop as far as getting in for preliminary because it doesn't make sense for us to come back until that issue is solved unless we're just putting our hands up and saying well the planning commission rezoned it but we can't use it those five units can't happen so that's why we want to talk to the planning commission they were part of this and it was for a reason that this land was being bought but so my question I guess is of timing maybe it's as simple as asking for an extension so can I just outline the time issue so the planning commission is now hearing requests for zoning changes twice a year they'll be hearing it at their first October meeting I believe is that right David? is that what Paul told you? yes he said BN so their first October meeting a planning LDR change typically takes four to six months to be implemented and then the sketch plan expires after six months so if we were to close tonight six months hence is February we'd be really pushing it if they were to we'd have to come up with a full plan set and when do you come up with that full plan set you kind of want to know what's happening with units one through five do we have the authority to extend? do we have the authority to extend? yeah you want to keep talking and I'll find out the answer really quickly? that's why I wondered if you don't have the authority whether it could be suspended just as if we have the authority to suspend either so and I'm sorry I don't know the answer I'd like to be more definitive but I think there's a there is case law what the hell was that guy's name 40 years ago airline pilot Paul? I think the line of preso cases you have a lawyer advising on this? not yet yeah you all see the question you want to ask is when do rights vest in connection with the zoning application? that's the question and I don't think we can my gut but I'm not certain I don't think we can vary whatever that rule is and it's been declared by the Supreme Court so rights vest for a zoning application prior to preliminary plan prior to preliminary plan? when you submit whatever rules were in place when you submit preliminary preliminary plan that may be the rule whether you can extend sketch I'm looking but if the right vest it vests and what the planning commission does I don't think I hope I'm not wrong but today they're not vested because it's sketch but the action by the planning commission is out there months from now I thought you said so they wouldn't want to submit preliminary until the action by the planning commission is concluded otherwise you need the plan I suppose that would be up to staff we could submit and say we understand that one through five is conditional at best because it has to have this other action but it makes more sense to have it settled and come back with that issue settled yeah and a simple I have nothing but I mean we can just continue this thing until January, February you know then we could just leave it in the continued status continue sketch just continue for a degree of you don't want to continue too far because it sort of falls out of appropriate public notice a couple months probably reasonable four months probably pushing it but if we extended two months extended sketch for two months they'd be into November well they'd be almost in November and they would have a preliminary thumbs up or thumbs down from yeah you'd have a lot more of an idea yeah if you're because we won't make much headway but if it can be two or even three months that would solve the problem and I think you have the ability to extend it as long as you want as long as it's done at a public hearing if you do it to a time a date certain I don't understand you're not fearing a change you are rooting for a change that you need in order to do this on one through five correct item 12 staff actually likes that we have a variety as Frank mentioned we do have five single family lots and then as I mentioned we have single units and duplexes and we'll we'll talk to the gardeners about the footprints okay board comments board questions I think the road the roadway made I mean the roadways always made sense so I I'm not in favor of pulling off some kind of separate roadway that creates a central park lands otherwise the density you know how I feel so let me let me just so this has come up often density in the southeast quadrant comes up just about every time it's a project in the southeast quadrant and the reason I like density in the southeast quadrant is because higher density means it's more affordable and if you don't have affordable housing which is why as you said we need to hear from the affordable housing committee if you don't have affordable housing in the southeast quadrant it's just people who can afford not affordable homes and I'm not a fan of that at all so I really like density and I really like affordable housing in the southeast quadrant and I'm sorry to make the public sit through this philosophical discussion I agree and I disagree I agree that in a village setting small homes make all sorts of sense south village works that way it was a planned thing it's not six units off by themselves it's 50 units that look similar that are small homes with alleyways and it works and that's 12 unit structure a couple of 12 unit structures that works in that context yeah but what you've got here is a roadway that comes into this that is all single family homes budding into something that is far more dense it's inconsistent with the neighborhood I'm not saying that you can't I mean if this shape was an L the opposite way and the current road stopped fine loop it the other way and create its own neighborhood fine but this is a continuation of a road if I was a neighbor I would have problems with the fact that it's not consistent with my neighborhood with my direct neighborhood not down the street and on the left I mean the rye neighborhood has the ability to have both small and apartment and it's meant that way it was built that way it's intended to be not necessarily big A affordable but a more affordable type of housing mixed in with there's no large single family there it's there's sort of cottages again we're being philosophical here I don't disagree that the southeast quadrant should have affordable housing where appropriate and I actually want the affordable housing committee involved in this because here's an opportunity to potentially get six units somewhere and six units is six units the affordable housing committee is is funding I think two units a year or something like that it's not a lot so I'm not saying you're wrong Bill I'm saying this may not be the place we or we should hear from planning that every one of these has to have it if that's the goal I've said enough goodnight I generally agree with you I don't love this layout I mean that's about as far as I can get I don't feel like I have enough affirmative knowledge to suggest a way to relay it out to make it work you know in a way that would be to my perception more satisfactory so you don't so if there were a way to make it a designed neighborhood like south village like rye I have no problem with that yep but that's just not what we're seeing well again it's a 5.8 acre parcel so it's not south village it's not a hole in the middle and wildflower circle exists because of gardeners because of their willingness to give the easement the road was always going through so again that fixed starting point the fixed ending point the geometry that part fixed you know so like like John said it's a matter of if yeah we know that you're allowed to do four units per acre with TDRs if you meet everything else but do you meet everything else I mean that's really what it boils down to I think so when he's talking about the potential to eliminate one leg or the other that is what we're talking about that's how you that's the way that this project is less dense I don't think the gardeners should be penalized because the developer that did the project next door that got the easement from the gardeners did single family lots this is the southeast quadrant they bought up against the southeast quadrant no zone changes occurred here they all know that it can go up to four units per acre so I don't lose sleep over that part I know it's we're trying to do less next to the neighbors with the single family in the back but while this isn't the same as the neighborhood that's not with the southeast quadrant it's supposed to be it's supposed to be a mix of housing it's not supposed to be all the same I completely agree with that and the other side of my head sorry I'm not being clear that's very helpful I would like to echo John's comments and while I would like to see a little bit different configuration of the two stubs to make it a little bit more I don't know less dense I'm on the frugal side but while I'd love to see what's going to happen with that common land area I would wait until after I know what's happening with units one through five because units one through five may not happen at all yeah okay alright enough philosophy I think that's it more comments more guidance from the board I'd like to understand it sounds like we could continue certainly they're requesting we continue as long as we comfortably can doesn't bother me but then it leaves more of this question hanging should they be trying to work with each other we're going to we're going to be reaching out to staff so I'm going to recommend we continue to either the second meeting in October or the first meeting in November to give reasonable time after we hear from public okay I have those dates available okay after public comment let's see so we'll have people from the public please sit down Sara Dopp I'm not crazy about the little soldiers lined up being being right in the row I'm really glad that the city is being mindful of the curvy cottages trying with different developments that come up to see if there's a place for them there so I really applaud that but one of the charms to me of looking at curvy cottages is their configuration and they're not little soldiers in a row they're kind of around a central green and that makes it real neighborly and friendly and cozy back there and I just throw out there can be some way of replicating that and this piece of property that's good thanks Sara I'm sorry, yes, please identify yourself my name is Tyler Barnes and I'm a resident of Wildfire Drive and for the record we do not object and I don't want to speak for everyone but I can still hear a common theme from all of us who are here and from those of us who have asked me to push their concerns on the behalf we do not object to development as a matter of fact we welcome it we're excited about the day when our kids will be able to ride their bikes around the connected public drive and spray but to echo what we're looking at your concern there's it's how we do it and is it something that is congruent, is the development something that's congruent with the nature of our current neighborly and we feel that this configuration is not LDRs I have several questions that a lot of people like to ask about the LDRs and I think those pertain to those but to go to your point we also don't necessarily object to high levels of density and we welcome the opportunity for there to be accordingly for the opportunity for there to be more affordable housing I think it's great I think I'm speaking only to myself and it will be great for our kids but to use David's own argument this particular plot has a couple fixed they're not variables they're fixed elements that make the design layout very challenging and one of those is the fixed entry points one of those is the whole to echo David's comments and again I only speak for myself right now but I wouldn't like to see that house go to this one of my son's friends lives there selfishly but those make it incredibly challenging to do everything that David's proposing the garden's proposing to do right here so it's not that we object to it at all it's just again a question of what fits and right now again again it just doesn't fit a couple of questions that we have pertaining to the LDRs and also to some of the stuff that's been brought up tonight if I may ask David directly is that allowed? typically you should talk to us and we should redirect I'm confused one of the points that I'm confused on is that the common land as it stands right now as I understand it is that that home maybe my eyes aren't that great but 23 that is currently a wet land and they're proposing to fill that in and one of the comments from David directly as I understood it was that everybody gets very very very very wet so is there a plan to address that in the common land as it stands right now or is that going to continue to be commercial? go ahead I didn't say very very very very wet and it doesn't get marshy it's heavy soils that in the spring because of grading it gets wet the reason it gets wet the reason that it was created is the existing drive so the existing drive comes in here to the house and it it's a fill drive so right up against the drive that drainage we have gotten through before there's not a culvert there so it gets a little wet the existing road system will have a shallow ditch and it will have storm structures that all go back to this corner and discharge out at that corner so all of the storm ends up back here eventually and does need to meet the state standards but that is I would venture a guess that if you took the state wetlands division through the neighborhood of wildflower circle you might find a similar wet area in the spring so it's really the wetland consultant who's been working for a longer than I have probably about four years in the business did not delineate it the first time and when out there with the state the state said well yeah it's not much but you probably ought to put some flags there too so it's it'll be addressed by proper drainage and it's class 3 correct? yeah similar question the common area land there's also additional land that's been allocated behind units 1 through 5 it's common area one my question to the board is it would appear as though that a considerable amount of that common land also fits within the buffer for the class 2 wetland am I understanding that correct? a considerable amount of this correct okay so would the plan then be that that could be maintained common land or is that planned that would no this is the amenity area common land so single family lots are owned by the individuals regardless of whether these end up being footprints, condos whatever everything outside of the non single family homes is common land and then we have the designated area that there will be an amenity so this is the area that you want them to use it's not that they can't walk through this area but there'll actually be some form of delineation along that 50 foot buffer so whether that's cedars last time we talked the board in 2016 didn't the input that we got was not to wall it off with landscaping that maybe more like split rail fence or we've done bird houses before but some form of delineation along that buffer that's more natural than just creating a cedar wall so thank you for the clarification on the common area land the 0.938 that's the land that's designed to be used so that's the land that's designed to be used wouldn't it make more sense to split that land if for the LDRs and forgive me I'm very much not an expert but I understand that the common land that's designed to be used is supposed to be most readily accessible by foot by bicycle and by vehicle the sidewalk is on the other side of the street wouldn't it make more sense to develop a configuration where the common land is designed to be used by the group so that by the community is accessible by the sidewalk particularly when you have such a high density small kids just a thought this common land is not intended as a one of your pocket parks or public parks it's common for this development not for adjacent developments the sidewalk is there because that's the input that we got from public works back in 2016 I want to say it's been too long but I want to say it might be a continuation we did we had proposed a crosswalk at that time and it was asked to be removed because they did not want a mid block crosswalk that was public works correct for the units 6 through 11 if I understand the LDRs correctly it should be two parking spaces per dwelling maybe it's my eyes but I'm only counting are there 12 indeed 12 spaces there there is not 12 3 11 so what would the plan be for the 12th space and what would the contingency be especially the last go round the request from the board was to eliminate on-street parking what would the contingency be for people who wanted to park down there but would it because all the spots were full I'm not sure that it's a requirement for two spaces for those units but we could certainly add one right there if it was and meet the LDRs and how would plowing work in the event in the snowstorm where would the cars go same as any other facility like this they have to move and the private contractor comes in what would they move to I don't know if you want this much back and forth yeah it's better it's better these are details that usually come out in preliminary so I sketch it's good that you're paying attention it's very good but at sketch it's more like big picture that's alright and we shared the same sentiments of Mr. Cochran with regard to putting all the affordable housing in one section and those spheres are compounding when I start thinking about it going down that radical are there going to be conflicts with people trying to park out in the street and is that going to create some sort of natural friction where there doesn't need to be another concern that again goes back to does this fit I'll be quiet now I'll address my neighbor's speaker thank you for your time and thank you thank you yes please identify yourself my name is Jennifer Doik and I'm also a resident of Wildflower Drive a question and concern I had about the configuration we all share a lot of the same concerns and Tyler got one a lot of them 19 17 from 19 it appears that the space between the backs of those homes and property lines may be about 30 feet I understand that yeah so there's a line on the plan that's the that's the 30 foot line that's the 30 foot line probably 35 feet the requirements well my question is I know that when our development was built a lot of the residents of DuPois Drive had asked for a greater setback from the houses on the south side of our streets so those houses cannot put any structures, windsets sheds anything within 40 feet of the back property line so my question is would that apply here the houses are going right to 30 feet and so why I guess why is that allowed in this area that's the regulations so they're not quite to the 30 feet but the 30 foot step back we're not looking for any waiver we've maintained the standard which is a little unusual in a PRD a lot of times you are looking for waivers in areas like this but in respect for the neighborhood for Wildflower Circle we have kept those units out and again compared to last time one of the sentiments was those duplexes are just too big so it did change from the two duplexes to three singles there there may be maybe more changes to come based on what we talked about so the board could consider imposing condition against placing accessory structures in the backyards and that would be something that you could ask the board to consider I suppose you have asked the board to consider and the preliminary and final plot would be the place to actually make that because that's where the conditions become finalized more comments yes please identify yourself the same property lines there is the on the side of the that dash line is the standard setbacks that's a single family lot so they would own this approximate quarter acre and they could do a shed or anything within that building is that the same I'm not sure is that the same what's the from the property line from the side of the house that's ten feet it's a side setback that's a side setback to where the storm pond is for the wildflower circle that's ten feet and that's in regulationizing I wasn't sure thank you more comments questions that's it we wanted it out yeah so in terms of guidance John pick a number what would you be happy with in terms of density I know this is not something that we actually have authority over if I can clarify a little bit you know maybe density isn't a number it's a configuration in a layout yeah that connection boy it's getting long maybe this is not practical I look at what the six little Indians or soldiers whatever they are up there I really dislike the solid the solid surface in front of them it's just a parking lot and a road really segregating them I don't believe they're integrated at all I think the effect will be setting them off by themselves is there any possibility I don't know what's off to the right as we look at this but it seems to be a little room over there is there any possibility of getting the kind of curvilinear configuration and moving the parking spaces behind the units moving them up in other words have the units take up that space move the parking units behind them curve the road around and curve the configuration of the units we'll curve them bring them more to the which way is north on that thing straight up curve them around to the to the southeast you got a pump station there you'd probably have to relocate the pump station I don't know if that's an engineering issue the only engineering issue really is to keep this corner open for storm water pump station and water and that can change I thought storm water was going to you can't send storm water out the back storm water is detained here and controlled the discharge point is where it is now the storm water from this site goes to that corner so the discharge point would also be to that corner the gardeners actually have an easement from south brilington realty because most of the drop in elevation would be a pretty line again I don't know if it were possible to make six units and bring them around move the space clear of your drainage area if you move the parking spaces for the six soldiers in the back we can certainly look at it if you try if this is the general starting point for this and you try to bring in a road around the back you're not going to have as much space you're not going to get six it just the way it will work with the interior radius just as with this alignment so forget the curvilinear for a minute there is less footage on the inside of the road than there is the outside of the road so if you try to bring a road up and get the road around the back you might be able to make it work but those buildings if they're going to work they're going to be 10 feet away from that house so instead of having a 20 foot grass strip right here you're going to have these units up against this house cozy a real neighborhood I certainly feel that we have enough feedback to come up with some options and you'll work with staff alright I think I feel that we've given some clarity to what we'd like and I hope you guys feel the same and I really appreciate the neighbors and everybody showing up and offering comments so we will continue to first in November is that okay November 6th is that okay November 6th alright move that we continue sketch plan application SD 1826 to November 6th move in second continue to November 6th all in favor say aye opposed thank you very much there won't be another notice for the November 6th hearing so this is your notice to show up on November 6th if you want to see and please let your neighbors know I'm sorry November 6th Tuesday first Tuesday in November first Tuesday November you can keep an eye on the development review site for the city and Fridays it's posted so what's going on the next week you can see so if it gets changed for any reason you'll see it there it'll never be moved nearer in time right right thanks take care so you're going to meet on voting day we are meeting on voting day yes we often do thank you next on the agenda continued preliminary application SD 18-17 of Peter Ewing to subdivide an existing 9.7 acre undeveloped parcel into two lots of 2.1 acres and 7.6 acres at 133 cheese factory laying continued preliminary application so who is here for the applicant Peter Ewing trustee of the Ewing farm trust and the link of our lead living trust and also this is John Benhammer of the Nature Conservancy here today and there's a large conservation element to our project and so John's going to be here to talk to that if you recall at the last meeting there was a lot of staff comments and over the last couple of months we used it wisely to address those comments and we've incorporated everything we could into the plan and other items are in process the big item was the road we've got the road our plan complies with all the conditions from the highway department safety police everything else for a 20 foot wide gravel road 18 inches of crushed gravel we have a wetlands crossing and we were allowed an 18 foot width in the wetland and we've got just recently received our new engineering plan for the wetland crossing so we've got that done and we had a permit for a 12 foot wide wetland crossing and so we've got to bring that up to 18 feet and it's our plan incorporates that and we'll be filing the amendment with the state shortly so that's in process, that was a big item and that's moving along very quickly right now so that's in regards to the road and again we're fully comfortable with complying with all the rest of staff's comments and many of those comments were expected to be done by final plan we had the time now we've got most of them done now and then the other big element of our project is the subdivision of lots 2A and 2B in South Burlington and lot 2B is to be conveyed to the nature conservancy and we think it's around nine acres we're still trying to get a good measurement estimation of where the town line is, someone up in the air but that'll get figured out sooner or later so you can see 2B is over here to the right and it's part of a much larger 48 acre natural area that will connect to other nature conservancy lands in Shelburne and geographically from an aerial you can see that it really is sort of one piece and all of it abuts Muddy Brook and I guess you could call it an upland forest and so on and so forth so it's a very important part of this project to add on to nature conservancy lands in that area and I'll let John talk to that also John provided a sample conservation agreement and that was one of Marlin's comments we got that tonight, of course we had the nature conservancy purchase and sale that was signed back in May and then I'll just very quickly say the Ewing farm plan involved a lot of cooperation between my parents who were divorced in 1975 only in their last few years of their life were they willing to sit down and come to an agreement and the Vermont Land Trust and Nature Conservancy were a big part of that discussion that resulted in what we think is the best plan for the farm my father was very passionate about conserving the land as much of the farm as possible and he pledged a very large gift of parcel and if the numbers if I've got the numbers right the parcel was valued about let's say 525,000 and my father pledged a gift of about 225,000 dollars to make this possible to help the nature conservancy complete this acquisition of this piece of land any remaining details I'm not aware of any large items but anything that comes up we'll certainly handle it by final plan and we've got a lot of work yet to do in Shelburne so kind of anxious to get moving on over there so that's my opening who's left comment certainly so I'm John B. Hammer I'm with the Nature Conservancy and this project a continuation of a 40 year effort really to conserve the shoreline of Shelburne pond and so we've engaged in about 22 transactions with landowners around the pond and conserved about three quarters of the pond shore frontage it's been a big huge effort over a long period of time and so we're happy to be continuing that effort with this project that includes frontage on Muddy Brook and the goal of our work at Shelburne pond has really been to acquire these parcels and convey them to the University of Vermont which utilizes the land as a natural area so it's a study area for students for professors there's a lot of research that goes on out there and have it open to the public as well so when we have done this in the past we have acquired the parcels and then conveyed them to University of Vermont with a reverter sometimes an automatic reverter sometimes a non-automatic reverter that if the property is used in any way that is not conducive to the Fish and Wildlife there on the property will revert to the nature conservancy so that's how we've handled all of the transactions up until now and what we're proposing here is actually because of the expense of the property we will need support we will be looking for support from both local donors in the area and as well as some funding that we have on hand and also the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board so the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board provides grants for affordable housing projects as well as land conservation projects and we've had good success in the past applying for funds with the Housing and Conservation Board for these kinds of projects so going forward with this project whenever the HCB funds a land conservation project they require a granted development rights, conservation restrictions and public access easement so that's what we're anticipating here if for whatever reason Vermont Housing and Conservation Board declines our request for grant funds then we would find other funding and try to go the secondary route which would be does the property convey it to UVM with those reverted clause that basically conserves the property great, staff's two comments did you already let's see so the first comment you've done that right that was the email you sent out that right so we reviewed the purchasing sales that the applicant provided and noticed that it didn't include anything pertaining to conservation so I reached out to Peter who then reached out to John and John explained that in the emails that I forwarded you guys this morning they can't place a conservation on the property until it's secured is that correct so the issue really is about valuation and so you know by requirement of as part of subdivision requiring that the property be conserved and appraiser would take a look at that and say well then the value has been dramatically diminished to you know practically zero in common terms but you know obviously not zero but it does drop the value considerably and you know John Ewing was very generous in making a bargain sale of the property from the original value that was established a couple years ago through an appraisal and you know but we're concerned that if both South Burlington and Shelburne make a requirement of as part of the subdivision that it be conserved well that drops the value way below a purchase price that we have established here that you've seen and we can't go forward because the nature conservancy we're bound 501C3 we're bound by IRS rules we cannot pay any more than fair market value for land so the LDRs require conservation in order to allow development of this parcel a conservation plan it's not very specific as to what the conservation plan is the Board has a lot of latitude but a conservation plan is required so we have a little bit of a chicken and egg situation staff has some ideas we're working with some other people on some conservation and we feel confident that we can sort of do something that passes the LAF test prior to final if you guys are comfortable closing the hearing the preliminary plot hearing and sort of deferring the chicken and egg problem to final plot two things happen here one thing would be noticed by the appraisers anyway we only allow four houses on this road on the road so whether the conservation requirement was there or not and we obviously required you couldn't build another one anyway so that land has only marginal value because you can't build on it well that's not entirely true if there was an access via a different if a new road came in and created a circle out of this which is an important distinction for the conservation agencies to make when they're securing funding because they have to be able to make the case that there is the whole point of the conservation plan here is to keep any houses away from moneybrook it's all part of you know the goal of expanding the Shelvern Pond natural area and of course this is the outflow to Shelvern Pond so in doing with this plan we've taken the one two bedroom house and put it as far west as possible and very very far away from the natural area if the city was to say no game whatever so then I guess we would continue with our plan that parcel then would remain one lot we would look at alternatives for bringing a road in down by moneybrook so it's and the other thing is you have to keep in mind that we've made it an enormous gift and this brought the purchase price of this piece of land down to extremely low numbers I don't see the relevance of that that has nothing to do with us but we obviously are grateful for this and it's I mean in terms of what we can actually adjudicate it doesn't matter but personally I'm sure we all feel extremely grateful and your father was well known in this community I'm inclined to move on as Marla said and let them figure it out I think they've gotten a very long way from where we started and you know I'm inclined to see this thing through at this point that's where I'm at puzzling over the conundrum so I can restate it accurately in order what seller regards as the reduced cannot be a conservation easement on it at the time of sale because that would diminish its value is that correct and you cannot pay more than its supportable appraised value is that correct a slight difference because when you say conservation easement you're talking about a formal document in the land records we're just talking about a requirement due to zoning so the requirement is what triggers the appraisal to have a diminished value not an easement per se but whatever agreement you say sign conservation agreement A we can't sign a conservation agreement for the reason that I said because it reduces the value we can't do that anyway because we're not at that what do you mean anyway we're under contract to buy this land in fee title we're not under contract to buy or obtain a conservation easement from the seller so that's not what our contract which you have says our contract is to purchase the land outright in full fee title not to conserve the property per se although that is our intent and the intent of the nature conservancy is always to conserve the property so but the conservation is a condition of the permit you're going to want from us right the actual conservation of the land is a condition of the permit you're going to want from us is it not we're not going to want that condition that's what I'm saying just the opposite they don't want it on there that's the intent is I mean I think we can trust that this is the intent of what they're doing they wouldn't have gone through this trouble otherwise but the question is can we leave it to Marla for final I think for the moment for tonight can we leave it to Marla and staff to discuss with them to see if we can find a way for them to deal with the fact that we require that's what I'm saying the condition of our approval our condition of approval is a conservation plan Marla thinks that there may be ways to get there and I think we can leave it to staff to try to work that out for tonight that's my take one of our crafty ideas just to preview it a little bit is to have something like the final mylar shall not be reported until a conservation plan and I haven't previewed this to John so he may be looking at me like this right now but you know we have some ideas for how to come around and I agree with you that there should be a preliminary condition that specifically says you know the approval is subject to a conservation plan because that's what the LDR say yeah with all respect I hear what you're doing and with that's intended when you say leave it to staff I think you're better off leaving it to your lawyers agreed and consulting your tax lawyers but I mean this potentially as I said in my emails you know this could spell the you know the end of the deal basically because if we can't pay any more than fair market value for land and so if the value drops to you know what $1,000 an acre or something like that then we're way below what the appraisal or what the our contract says and so there's no way we can move forward with that we would not get approval of our chain of command and so this project would not happen I'll go along with the rest of the board I mean at this point they've accomplished everything we would normally expect them of them for preliminary and there's one hurdle to deal with and we don't know if that's a hurdle they can make I'm done Jennifer okay number two what agreement similar to that provided the VLT conservation agreement satisfy the requirements of 912A2 I'm going to leave that to staff I have provided both the conservation easement that is a standard conservation easement to the housing and conservation board a different form you know it's the same form but it's for a different parcel in the southern part of the state they use the same form and then I've also provided the reverter basically the deed to the University of Vermont with the reverter clauses in it so one way or another you can see that the property would be conserved under either scenario that's great staff will figure that out with you guys so is the timing good now for us to close this it would be great okay to get on to Shelburne where we have a huge amount of work ahead of us and they're just they're one requirement was to for South Burlington to say what they wanted done with the road and so we've been through that process we're in full agreement with what and we'll make it happen what the town is what the city of South Burlington is requesting as I recall your closing is like June 30th of next year and so therefore with the nation's conservancy yeah right but there's also a closing in June 30th of 2019 the Vermont Land Trust and in your packet I saw Marla included John and I and my brother also trustee there was a conflict and we did an amendment to unhitch those contract contracts originally that we were supposed to all close on the same date and that didn't happen so the Vermont Land Trust date got pushed off and it created a conflict so we did an amendment to remove that conflict and so the your board would only be dealing with just the nation conservancy transaction we get that done and then we move right onto the Vermont Land Trust transaction and frankly that works best for us because it's just very hard for me to get off to stay on top of everything two closings in one day is too much 12 months timeline works now because it's 12 months from when we close and that will work with June 30th actually that's or it's decoupled great but I do have a question about the the whole final plat process so we can close and then the final plat is afterwards okay that's normal I just don't understand it but figure it out I'm going to change the motion to close our comments from the public where is that cheese factory lane oh yeah cheese factory lane and the cheese factory lane you take a left well you wouldn't take a left it's a private drive so this road the gray like driveway that's coming off of cheese factory lane not cheese factory road cheese factory lane comes off of cheese factory road okay more comments question from the public this is just so good we need to find a way of making this happen Sara Doc said that part great great entertain a motion to close move that we close preliminary plan application SD 1817 of Peter Ewing I think it's the Ewing family trust right moving seconded we close this application all in favor say aye opposed thank you very much we are next on the agenda conditional use application CU 18-09 of Joseph Tang gay I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly you request a front setback waiver for the purpose of removing an existing one car garage replacing it with a two car garage connected to the primary residence by an enclosed breezeway and to add a covered porch at 41 courtland avenue who is here for the after yes so we have a plan to oh sorry Joseph Tang way of 41 courtland out so proposing to as you said remove a single family or single car garage which is currently attached to our home and before we go just have to ask does anyone have any conflicts of interest okay and would you raise your right hand and promise to tell the whole truth the whole truth nothing but the truth on the penalty of perjury thank you very much yes so proposing to remove the existing single car garage to the right of that picture there replace it with a two car garage with a connected mud room or breezeway depending on the language you use so requesting the setback waiver for the east side of the property surveyors a complete survey of that boundary for accuracy purposes and normally what would be the setback Marla okay that's great front setbacks 30 feet and he's going down to 7 foot 8 is that right it's 5 feet 3 and a half inches the plan shows something different right plan says 7 foot 8 and 3 quarters either way it's dramatic that's from the road so the road is not at the property line if you go down further in the application there's survey plans show the distance from well the existing distance from the existing garage to the property line and then you sort of subtract the dimensions and it works out to 5 feet 3 and a half inches we're able to after looking at this this plan here we certainly could give a little bit more distance in there I believe from the survey we're 26.75 to the property line now we're proposing that 7 foot 8 and 3 quarters so again the 7 foot 8 and 3 quarters is to the roadway and the property line is not the roadway but he's pre-existing non-conforming today and this increases the degree of non-conformity does it not section only 06 J allows such an action if it's consistent with the neighbors if it's consistent with the neighbors it doesn't have to go in front of the board if it's inconsistent with the neighbors then it's 3.06 J 3 subject to conditional use no less than 5 feet from the front property line no undue adverse effect on views on site parking and safety this is a sort of unique property and that has two fronts yep the property in the photo here just to the above it any idea how close that side drive is from the street is that that's closer than your house is to the street now right closer than our than your current garage from the land survey or certainly not a professional reading these it appeared that we're going to be 8 feet from the property line and then there is still room to the edge of the pavement right so the property line is on your grass the pavement is beyond the property line so you're closer to the property line than you are to the pavement so you're 5 feet 3.5 inches from the property line and 7 feet something inches from the pavement I see maybe I could be misreading it it looks like from the land survey or that there was still where it shows Jonathan Ave that's not actually the pavement line on that right hand side there is the property line the plan reads property line is that small line interior to Jonathan I don't know if that's right but it is reading 7 foot 8 3.5 to the property line on the left hand side the zoomed in version of the land surveyors information shows the existing garage as it stands today to the property line on the edge of the pavements represented there so the plan that Jennifer has up right now was prepared by button land surveyors the plan that looks a little prettier was prepared by the architect this is exactly why we have land surveyors so using the land surveyors measurements that's how we came up with the 5 feet 3.5 inches proposed it exceeds the minimum we could go down to 5 feet correct? we could go down to 5 feet so either way we have the authority to go there even though it's pre-existing not conforming just eyeballing that it looks like it doesn't add that much in impervious surface or am I wrong it's about eyeballs that far off of the sun of impervious so the impervious goes from allowable impervious in the district it goes from 26.3 to 31.3 just read the table that's all you have to do just read the table okay getting late I guess getting late exactly right so there is an increase about 5%ish still under the allowable so we're covered alright I'm good it sounds like staff is happy with getting that close to the property line it doesn't look to me like it is horrendously out of character with the neighborhood looks to me like it's going to be a nice addition so I'm okay with it you guys what do you think on the board Brian, John, Jennifer are there any questions about whether or not that's an extra dwelling space does that have anything to do with anything coverage? the applicant has represented that it is a two-car garage if they were to use it as an accessory dwelling unit it would be a violation it would be illegal in the bonus room then above the garage above the garage wouldn't be finished for quite a bit of time until we have the resources and time to do it they can use it as part of their home our plan is to basically shell the structure whether tight of course with windows and have clean storage above and then the two-car garage in mud room looks like you're going from the existing 15.5% maximum building coverage up to the allowed 20% so right in line comments, questions from the board Jennifer are you okay? public, comments, questions, just please I have a question whoever sent please identify yourself my name is Betty Howard and I live on Jonathan Avenue whoever sent me this notice I appreciate it I don't know what's going on I have no objections to have the garage put up a double garage my only question is and maybe you can explain it to me how far from the side of the garage to the street is it? I'll wait for the experts so given the inaccuracies we have just pointed out in the architecture drawing that's a little bit of a challenge to answer but if I roughly scale it off it looks like the edge of pavement is well let me actually scale it off rather than roughly scale it off a little calibrate tool is it an 8.75? well what we just sort of determined that's wildly inaccurate right so that's why I thought I'd measure it instead it's not wildly inaccurate it's off by about so it's somewhere around 7 feet so if I measure from the property line to the pavement on the survey plan it shows 16 feet 16 feet from the current garage or from the from the property line to the edge of pavement the property line to the edge of pavement right but I'm just measuring from the green if you can zoom in from the edge of the garage to the street if I'm measuring from the green line the line that says edge of pavement see the property line is way inside the edge of the pavement I hadn't noticed that that's a huge and so we're talking about 16 plus 5 exactly so it's going to be like 21-ish feet from the street from the side of the garage to the street it's going to be 21 feet right because the property line is 16 feet from the street and then the garage is going to be 5 feet from that so not the middle of the street but the edge of the street edge of pavement the edge of the pavement to the the side of the garage why am I asking this I want to know where they're going to put the snow that's the only reason we actually talked to the Department of Public Works I don't know if you were the person who commented but we had a public comment while I was out yesterday about snow and Public Works Director spoke to his operational folks and I have that response which is basically he said there won't be any changes in operations required for this because of this he said the project would not change the way we plow the neighborhood the proximity to the road wouldn't cause any problems this is a low speed area so we don't throw snow far enough to the proposed house the edge of the street to the edge of Joe's proposed two-car garage is going to be 21 feet and the distance will be in between understand that we've scaled this off the best we can but that's roughly 21 feet my thing was when I saw it it was going to be 7.8 3 quarters where are they going to put the snow that's to his property line and it may be a little smaller than that it may be as little as 5 feet to his property line but then there's another 16 feet exactly it's plenty of room it's getting warmer every day yeah okay about comments from the public yes please Penny set us up I'm going to sort back but I forget to speak to each other I'm wondering if the structure is going to come any further back than it is right now because there's a porch that's going on the back the plan shows that they are the proposed porch will be less far back than the existing deck so they've got a deck out back now right in the middle of the house they're taking that away and then out behind the garage they're going to have a porch there that won't go as far back as the current well the 3D view on page A30 does not imply that it will be in line with the other roof lines are consistent there you go so it will go as far back the part that's on to the left of the porch is the existing house right now my second question is you said it was a breezeway and why do we have doors there's an inset people would call a breezeway there's a little inset to the right of the garage doors some people would call that a breezeway there's a door inset in there to a mud room is that correct so that's going to be open that's not going to be a door there there is a door there but it's inset there's an open porch on the outside of it in one of the drawings you can't see the inset it looks flat but this is what it's going to be it's hard to tell there because you can't see that inset right but the next well it's not the old it's not the old fashioned breezeway that actually is open all the way through I understand what you're saying it's an inset porch with a door to a mud room breezeway probably is a wrong word for it okay thanks cool more comments, questions in that case I'll entertain a motion to close hang on a second I move that we close conditional use of applications CU 1809 of Joseph Tengwe second I've been moving the second one to close this application all in favor say aye opposed thank you very much I hope it goes well I appreciate it yeah that's great next minutes from August 7th 2018 everyone's had a chance to read through them and see whether they reflected what was said no changes anyone found okay I move that we approve the minutes of August 7th do we have to? yeah we do right after moving second we approve the minutes of August 7th all in favor say aye opposed thank you very much and that's the end of 9.30 on the dot thank you to Sue thank you to Charlie, thank you to Miranda you saw I used your article she's back there